Five Hundred Years
by JadeCC
Summary: Would you die everyday? Would you do it for love?


**Disclaimer: **Inuyasha is not mine, but the idea behind and words of the story are.

**Five hundred years**

**By Vic'chonn**

Would you die everyday?

Would you do it for love?

o-o

The greatest love stories are usually tragic, sad. There is no happily ever after in real life, after all. There are drops of perfectness, glimpses of utter joy; but ever-lasting happiness is rare. Almost inexistent.

He has died for five hundred years now. Every day—when the sun hides in the horizon and the moon is up in the sky, he sighs for he knows it's time. He fights, he struggles, he searches… and by then the sun comes back and a sword, or a dagger, or an arrow, just _something_ _pierces_ his heart and he's no more.

People say it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved.

He has loved and has lost. But he doesn't believe it's for the better or for the worse. He simply wants to hold his beloved again.

And for that, he won't mind dying time and time again.

o-o

She _knows_ he's somewhere looking for her. It has been two years, but for him, maybe half a century or more.

She _hears_ his sighs as she looks at the stars. He's probably getting tired, but she knows he will never give up. His dignity and sense of duty would never allow him to give up. His love would never let him forget.

She hopes she's right.

Today she can hear the horizon opening, widening as the sunlight stretches across the city.

One step closer.

Hope is the last thing you lose. Pandora made sure of that.

o-o

He stands before the light again, but for some reason, today, for the first time in these long years, he's afraid.

What if the curse never breaks? What if he never finds an answer? What if he misses her when he's given that small chance?

Time stands still as a small knife that smells like roses and shines like sunshine pierces tender skin.

His eyes do not widen any more. He simply closes and waits for another night.

He has died yet again.

But he still waits.

He has loved her for this long. He will continue loving her for much more.

o-o

Her skin tingles in excitement and her world suddenly has some color splashes.

She recognizes the deep red, not like blood for blood is not completely red. Just like his brother's—her friend's—old robe.

She sees the green, just like the eyes of her son—lost to time, _her_ sense of time. Destined to live in his.

She sees blue. Like the sky she used to see in her adventures, like the ocean long before she fell through a circle of cements and old bricks.

She stares at amber, deep pools of honey and something more.

She needs to be brave; she needs to know it's real. Her hand touches soft lips and she knows she's not dreaming.

The world is not black and white anymore. A rainbow drenches her vision and she smiles.

It all came to this.

The curse was broken.

o-o

He fights and wonders how many more trials he will have to win. He doesn't mind, he can continue doing it for a thousand years if he has to. He's simply curious.

Who would have thought a cursed jewel could be so vicious?

Just because _it_ believed they were not meant to be, he had to stay in time and fight through it to find her.

She had to leave, leaving broken and empty hearts.

He fights some more and suddenly he lands at _nothing_.

Nothing seen, nothing felt, only a booming voice that jokingly asks:

"So you give up?"

"Never."

"It's been so long."

"I love her. I could do it for eternity, I could really _die_, but it wouldn't be for naught. I did it—I do it for her. She knows it. She will know it."

Silence.

"What if she has forgotten you? What if she found someone else to love?"

"I want her to be happy."

"What does that mean."

"As long as she's happy, then I'll be fine. She deserves to be happy."

"Then you would have fought for nothing."

"You're wrong. I fight for love. I waited for a long time, but I waited because of the love I feel for her. If she loves someone else, I'll let her be. I fought to keep _my_ love for her alive. That is enough."

"I don't understand you _demon._"

"Not everything in this world can be understood."

"You have changed Sesshomaru… You have suffered enough. Both of you have suffered enough."

Stars covered his eyes, his body floated just like every single time he died. And then he fell, only to be standing in a land he doesn't know of but he feels so familiar with.

o-o

She embraces him and cries because her heart is hurting so much; it's beating as if it would escape from her body and land before him—just like it always has in her dreams.

He caresses her face, studies her eyebrows, her nose, her lips, her tears because they remind him of agony, of pain, of joy, of hope.

She lays her head against his chest; he cradles her neck.

They stay like this as strangers pass by them.

Some stare, some glare, some sigh wistfully.

Ah, _young _love.

A love that is old like time—steady, firm, constant.

He died every day for her. For five hundred years.

And she waited for him, ready to start life together.

*Completed March 2012


End file.
